So, I finished drinking the Kool-Aid last night – quite tasty, thank you for asking – and finally stopped pinching myself before I went to bed.

And in the cold light of day, I’m still stunned.

The speed at which this came together continues to amaze me. A week ago, we’re arguing with each other about how Richt’s wish for defensive continuity is going to play out this season. Grantham flees Athens last Sunday, leaving us to fret about the process for finding his successor, as well as who that successor will be. But we barely had time to fret! (Schlabach told 680 The Fan yesterday that Richt learned of Grantham’s move at four o’clock that day and had settled on Pruitt as the guy to go after by five.)

Mark Richt snatched victory from the jaws of malaise. He is receiving deserved acclaim for acting so decisively. In fact, I’d call it near-universal acclaim. Outside of the FSU fan base, I honestly can’t find any criticism of the move, not from the media, other coaches, even that part of the fan base that has been steadily critical of Richt (when’s the last time that happened, eh?).

I mean, consider where things have wound up now that the dust has settled. Georgia has swapped Todd Grantham for Jeremy Pruitt, literally, for the same contract terms, and gotten a defensive coordinator with a better recent track record on the field and who is a better recruiter. And in the bargain, has gotten all that without having to make a major disruption to its defensive scheme. That’s about as good as it gets.

It’s so good that it’s making me a little nervous, honestly. Since when does Georgia get this golden? This is the home of funky karma and playing it safe and slow. But I’ll put that aside for now. Let’s look at a few specifics that are worth getting excited about.

Hey, maybe Georgia isn’t such a bad place to be after all. Louisville isn’t toxic, but Bobby Petrino obviously has a tough sell to make when he hires staff. That’s why it took the most ridiculous contract in college athletics to get Todd Grantham to jump ship. Pruitt decided to leave FSU a week after winning a national title for a contract worth half of Grantham’s. Whatever you think about Richt as a head coach, you’d have to say he’s still got the ability to attract quality coaching talent. Hopefully that’s a meme we can dispose of for a while.

Recharging the program’s batteries. That being said, this had all the makings of a somewhat sober offseason. The 2013 season was a bummer, from the final record to all the injuries. There’s no question that for much of the fan base the bloom had worn off the Grantham rose. I’m not saying that Richt’s decision to keep on keeping on with the defensive staff was a fatal call – there would have been no way to know that for sure until the 2014 season got underway – but it sure wasn’t lighting much of a fire under anyone. Today, we’re in a very different place. The fan base is pumped up and united for the most part. More importantly, from what I gather, you can say the same thing about the players.

Music to my ears. Georgia’s got plenty of talent on the defensive side of the ball. And Grantham, whatever faults you want to lay at his feet, wasn’t a dummy. But when you’ve got players having as much trouble getting in position in the bowl game as they did in the season opener, things clearly weren’t working right. So let me say that I flat-out love hearing stuff like this about Pruitt: “He was as good as anybody I’ve been with in the press box in the National Football League and in college ball,” said Sal Sunseri, an assistant on that 2009 Alabama team who now works as Florida State’s defensive ends coach. “He knows exactly how to put the guys in place and knew how to make adjustments. & That’s how we won.” That is some first class Dawg porn for this blogger, ladies and gentlemen. Excuse me while I wipe up this drool…

More music. Tell me, when’s the last time you heard a Georgia defender talk about his coordinator like this: “He taught us the ins and outs of everything,” Florida State safety Terrence Brooks said recently. “Just the way to pursue to the ball, the way to go get the ball, everything you can think about in football he’s taught us. He really broke the game down to us as to why we’re running this type of defense. “He makes you understand it so much better and I feel like everyone bought into it and that’s why we’re so successful.” Damn it, where did I put that towel?

If you act now, we’ll include this as a special bonus! I’m thrilled with Pruitt the teacher and schemer. Finding out that he’s one of the top recruiters in the country is icing on the cake. Is this Richt’s best staff ever from a recruiting standpoint? Time will tell, but it sure seems like you can make that argument. Given this – “Pruitt already has impressed the Georgia staff with his knowledge of the Bulldogs’ recruiting prospects.” – it may not take that much time, either.

Kirby Smart. Who cares?

Greg McGarity. A better DC, an energized fan base, all without having to spend a penny more in a market like this? Wipe that shit eating grin off your face, man. And don’t forget to take care of Bobo now that you’ve gotten to keep a few extra bucks in your pocket.

Mark Richt, winner. He made it happen and he deserves the credit he’s getting. If Ivan Maisel’s perception (“that Georgia gave him a three-year deal is a good indication that head coach Mark Richt plans to stay at least that long, a good sign for the Dawgs”) is common – and I don’t buy it, by the way – then this is as good a way to dispel the doubters as I can think of. More importantly, he proved himself to be decisive in a crisis, and by that I don’t just mean finding a new DC. I don’t believe in the conspiracy theories floating around that this whole deal was engineered by Richt from the get go, because there’s no way he could count on the good fortune of a desperate Petrino to put the wheels in motion, but I am convinced that he intended to hold Grantham’s feet to the fire this season, and that Grantham was fully aware of it.

There was obviously plenty going on behind the scenes that we’re never going to be made fully aware of, but that’s water under the bridge now. The program is in a better place today and that’s something to celebrate. At least until we want to start complaining about what’s being done to fix the problems on special teams, that is. But that can wait. Let’s savor the moment for a little while, okay?

Question: It appears that everyone in our athletic department from ADGM to CMR was unhappy with Grantham and the direction of the defense. That being said, why didn’t our head coach make things happen by firing Grantham? Why does he have such a hard time of firing people?

Richt most definitely saved the day. And for that he deserves all the kudos in the world. With that said, if we had the ability to get Jeremy Pruitt, who is clearly an upgrade, I think the question, which is a fair one, is why wouldn’t Richt make that happen without waiting for Grantham to leave? It’s as if Richt was content with the mediocrity, but when he had no choice, then he was able to make magic happen. I think it’s more than a fair question to wonder why a coach who wants to win would not make that magic happen on his own volition. This gets to the heart of his hunger and his management style. And let’s not talk about money – the reality is that if Richt wants a coach gone badly enough, McGarity would surely make it happen regardless of the financial impact.

Bingo. What we don’t know is how the conversation with Grantham and ADGM went when Richt met with both. My guess is the Senator is right and Grantham started shopping for a sweeter deal. I think Richt probably made it clear he wasn’t going to make it a fun year on the D and D staff and “You know, Todd, if you get a better offer, you might want to consider it.” I don’t mind that. I don’t think he wanted Todd to have the stigma of being fired because it hadn’t gotten THAT bad yet in his mind.

My Lord, I’m so excited about watching an exciting and attacking defense.

So, you think our AD would have been willing to payout TG’s contract to fire him AND sign up for another 3 year $850K contract for a new DC? I suspect the answer is “No”. In this scenario, CMR was playing the hand he was dealt and TG fortunately folded. Then CMR played a new winning hand. See, there are lots of ways to interpret these events.

So you’re telling me that if Richt is insistent that he has an incompetent assistant who must be canned, then McGarity won’t listen because of dollars? I don’t buy that for a second, and I don’t think the Senator will either. If an assistant needs to go, $$$ won’t stand in the way.

Not so. It just strikes me as concerning that the same silliness goes in to watching the same mistakes made over and over again and not wanting to do anything about it. Thank God for Bobby Petrino, and thank God Richt landed Pruitt, but we need to be more aggressive in correcting our flaws.

Because you don’t know if you’re gonna land Pruitt. You can put out feelers but that doesn’t mean much if someone currently has the job. Think about it in your own world, talk is talk until something is visible. Without the opening being visible maybe Pruitt doesn’t take us seriously.

I disagree. Richt could have used a sock puppet on SeminoleVent to publish an authoritative job opening for DC and that Pruitt should apply. When Pruitt read that inside information, everything would have fallen into place. Maybe that’s exactly what happened.

Because it’s fair to assume this given that we have seen this pattern with other coaches. Willie M, Van Halanger, and now Grantham. You act as if our supposition is so outlandish even though the history shows it to be the case.

It fits in the pattern because he didn’t fire an incompetent assistant; the assistant left on his own. If we didn’t have Bobby Petrino so stupid to want to overpay for Grantham, how exactly would that “specific plan” have played out?

Moreover, in this case, it is especially shocking given what was waiting in the wings.

Not sure how many coaches truly know who is “waiting in the wings” until there is an opening. I think it is safe to say that CMR, unlike Petrino, isn’t gonna interview candidates for a coaching vacancy until it’s actually vacant.

Not to mention that Richt is not a total dick. He’s a fair man, and any fair minded person would take all the youth and injuries on the defense into account. Georgia’s defense sucked, no doubt, but from what I could see it was mostly on the secondary. Richt was willing to give Grantham a chance to fix that.

It’s more curiousity to me Senator. The “we weren’t firing him, but he was free to leave” idea. If you didn’t want the man around, why keep him around? That’s what I don’t get. If Grantham was free to pursue other opportunities, why don’t you fire him so he truly can pursue them? (with the fearful answering being, well then we’d have had to pay his buyout and reduce our reserve fund).

I didn’t say that it was, someone else did. I don’t know that to be the case, but honestly, I don’t care. What I do care about is that if nothing was said to Grantham, then Richt clearly was content to stick with an incompetent boob.

I don’t know why this is so hard. Either Richt didn’t want Grantham gone, in which case he was content to stick with an incompetent boob, or he did want Grantham gone, in which case it’s ludicrous that Grantham wasn’t fired. To not fire him but rather prefer he would leave on his own is unacceptable, as is holding onto such an incompetent clown. The only valid course of action was to recognize the disaster on hand, and act decisively (which, as mentioned earlier, we have seen this pattern in the past with Willie M and Van Halanger). The fact that he saved the day when Grantham bolted on his own doesn’t explain why Grantham was in charge of the departure in the first place.

He had the same defense in 2011 and performed extremely well. You were willing to fire him this year. Richt, it seems, wasn’t there yet. Considering Richt works with the man on a daily basis, perhaps he has a different idea as to what constitutes an incompetent boob. Who knows.

Either way, you’re taking this way too seriously when it doesn’t matter in the slightest at this point. He didn’t fire Bobo when people wanted him to and that worked out alright, didn’t it?

Todd Gurley just called the Senator to ask that you remove his name because it implies his tacit endorsement of your stupidity.

Your argument here about something which you obviously have no inside knowledge is ridiculous. Unlike your handle, who on the field doesn’t over-analyze the play-calling, scheme or situation – Gurley simply takes the ball and goes full bore each and every time, – you appear to want to find 18 reasons why something is wrong instead of supporting why something is right.

The most mediocre part of our defense was our secondary, which was the victim of youth, suspensions, attrition from earlier years, and (apparent) poor coaching. The rest of our defense was solid, and at times, really good. Allowing a coach the chance to improve things is not the same thing as being “content with mediocrity.”

Richt didn’t want him but Richt was too weak to fire him…..again that is where your Boy and his Dirty Mexican stepped in and pushed this deal along. Again….I don’t want to brag….but……You are all mighty welcome!

That was the very best Elvis concert I have ever seen, by far. If someone watches that Hawaii concert and doesn’t get what separates The King from others, they won’t ever like him. That was the best because, he sounded great, looked great, and had the best selection of music to showcase his voice. Have had that on DVD since it was first out and upgraded when they improved it (had it on Laser Disc first).

Because there is a broad spectrum of options between Fire him and give him a raise. How is that difficult to understand?

Plenty of times I have gotten the letter of resignation and said “I wish you the best of luck and please let me know if I can be of any assistance or if you need a future reference.” Sometimes I say “what can we do to keep you”, and then other times I am proactively making sure that a key employee is satisfied, engaged, and happy with compensation, projects, and work life balance. And sometimes I am just thankful that the person saved me the trouble of going through the firing process.

Plenty of times I have gotten the letter of resignation and said “I wish you the best of luck and please let me know if I can be of any assistance or if you need a future reference.”

Was this from incompentent people whom you let hang around, or was it from a competent guy whom you would have preferred to keep and had no interest in jettisonning? I am assuming the latter, of course.

You’re using the logical fallacy of false dilemma. You’re suggesting that the only two options for Richt were to fire Grantham for incompetence, or wholeheartedly endorse him. There are other possibilities.

No snark intended, Kevin and GurleyMan, but you might be falling into the hindsjght trap of “why didn’t he think of this before?”

Last week Mark Richt was planning to see if Todd Grantham could rejuvenate his career, and Richt was judging that the search for an improvement was a chancy thing, and we could get worse in 2014. Please remember, that’s how it was a short few days ago.

Some fans can’t appreciate the class that MR represents for our University. Anyone with thoughts towards the lives of others like Richt has can understand what you are doing to families and others when the word “fired” is used. It reflects the failure of both parties and should never be used except when forced with your back to the wall. Firing people is a last resort situation that should never be used insensitively. It smacks of FU redneck fans.

This has nothing to do with Richt’s class. We all think Richt is classy. But you’re telling me not firing an incompetent assistant is what makes up class and that is “unclassy” to fire incompetent underlings? Absurd.

To your point on the hindsight trap, I’ve heard “If Belichick knew Tom Brady was going to be such a good player why did he wait until the 6th round to draft him”. This type of Monday morning quarterbacking has become such an crutch to sports talk radio, it has seeped into the mainstream

GurleyMan (you really should change your name, it’s insulting to our best player) what is your deal? It baffles me that someone can find anything to bitch about after this hire.

I have heard from a few folks that I know who said that Grantham was told to look around and that he is the one who initiated contact with UL not the other way around (and this is from someone on the UL end not our end). How he convinced them that he was worth $1 mil is beyond me but good on him for it.

If you know anything about CMR it is that he has class and is a genuine person, he was allowing Grantham to keep his dignity while making a change that is excellent for the program at the same time. Why is this so hard to understand??

Why is it so hard to understand that it is ridiculous to want to keep a guy while at the same time encouraging him to look around? If you want your assistant to look around, then why would you want to keep him in the case that he doesn’t find a fool like Bobby Petrino to take such incompetent assistant off your hands?

I don’t remember the exact wording after the season, but it was something more like “we aren’t going to prevent anyone from exploring other opportunities” rather than “we are going to encourage some guys to look elsewhere.” You may not think that is a huge difference, but it is. The first is pretty much the unspoken rule at the end of every season of coaches who aren’t dicks. In this case, it was spoken because a reporter brought it up. Richt at no time said he wanted Grantham gone, so there is NO reason to believe that he wanted Grantham gone. What he did want is better results, and he was willing to give Grantham one more season to get those better results. This is not weakness. This is being an encouraging boss. This is not accepting mediocrity. This is weighing all of the factors of a shitty season and deciding that a guy deserves one more chance.

To put it simply, this is Mark Richt, and this is the way he works. Some of us see it as a feature rather than a bug.

Would you rather your manager at McDonalds fire you or would you rather him encourage you to go over to Arby’s and see if they are hiring? Of course I am being facetious but you get the idea. I don’t see why everything that CMR does you have to be so critical of. What would make you happy?? A public lynching? Tar and feathering him and running him out of town on a rail? Grantham may not have been what we needed as a DC but he is still a human being that deserves to be treated with a certain level of class and respect. If you truly do manage people then I pity the people who have to work for you.

I feel as uplifted as any fan, but talk of NC should stop now. It should not be carved as an expectation, but rather as an “If” everything we know of our program coming together without the big injury bug deciding our fate.

Pruitt fits everything we need when it comes to expertise and experience with the D-backfield, returns, ball turnover and other ST necessities. Let’s enjoy watching them work toward that and support what’s necessary to get our best players on the field. His experience with the prolific O at FSU’s practices is the best practice scenario that we could expect. He and Bobo should feed off one another.

Here’s to us, the fans, for maturing in a semicrisis atmosphere and arriving where many thought we should be over 7 yrs ago. Are you ready?: GO DAWGS! SIC”EM!

I don’t think we have done a good job in ATL the last 20 years. Richt has done better, but there is still ground to be made up. To be fair, there are a lot of kids in ATL and a lot of them don’t have ties to UGA.

This. ATL has become a city of transplants where a lot of the kids growing up have no allegiance to UGA and didn’t have parents or grandparents that attended there. I am not worried about our recruiting at all, our class last year was stellar and this year while small will be a great year too.

I think Richt new Grantham would leave this time at the first offer and had in the back of his mind who he wanted once Grantham made the first move. That is how it happened so fast. A good manager plans ahead for all possibilities. But like you said we (I) really don’t know what was going on behind the scenes.

Georgia – the home of funky karma. That belongs in the lexicon. And when was the last time you could type “Kirby Smart. Who cares?” and have everyone agree? I’m going outside to see if there are boulders falling from the sky or large cracks appearing in the face of the earth.

I’ve been called critical of Richt, but nothing to dislike about this. Absolute tape-measure, Mickey Mantle size grand slam.

As for Grantham, best of luck. If he succeeds at Louisville, I’ll be genuinely happy for him. But I have my doubts. Grantham knows football, I am sure. He strikes me as the type of person that knows everything there is to know about an engine, but can’t actually turn a wrench.

Can’t believe I’m saying it, still pinching myself. But after watching that presser, I think you’ve come up with the perfect description.

I was in Yankee Stadium before the renovation, in 1968, and saw the spot where the Mantle monster shot hit the light pole on the way out of the stadium. Nobody has ever, before or since, hit a baseball that high or that far.

Does not surprise me now re CMR’s schedule and etc. Remember, retains strong connections to FSU. Would he have casual conversations with Mickey Andrews and Bobby? Plus, if he watched the BCS game, I’m sure he saw what some of us saw in that game…not so much Jameis Winston, but FSU’s D.

Also, possibly he had more of the “sense” of where his staff was than many of us thought. But CMR was coaching more than the current play, but future plays in the game is catch the meaning. Factor in Will Friend’s association and relationship. No doubt Pruitt wanted back into the SEC, that is who he is.

Tre Mason had almost 200 rushing yards against Pruitt’s D. But he shut down Marshall and Marshall’s passing. 2014 Dawgs D will face Clemson, Auburn, and Tech between the hedges. Pruitt game planned all 3 in 2013. Throw in Florida. UF with Roper and Driskell will be a very tough team. Think not. Well, get out of the box.

He said, she said, what if this, what if that, its over its a done deal. Its time to sit back and let CJP go to work, NSD is three weeks away, then in September we arm chair quarterbacks can NIT-PICK everything he’s done, good,bad or indifferent. “GO DAWGS” GATA

It is WONDERFUL to have someone who can TEACH. I realize last years defense was very young and inexperienced. The problem I had, was that they looked just as bad at the end the season as they did at the first of the season.

“CMR allowed CTG and the db coach to leave on their own terms, or at least appear to.”

I think you nailed it. The fire-eaters want drastic action because it satisfies an emotional need. Richt doesn’t want to wreck anyone’s career or do needless harm to others. I’d say the honor in that outweighs a random fan’s need for blood. Of course, to the fire-eater, that’s a sign of weakness and that we’ll never win jack because ______.

First they came for Hugh Durham and
I didn’t say anything because I was stunned.
Joe Williams? Who is Joe Williams?

Next they came for Mark Richt and
I didn’t say anything except adios because he couldn’t score a TD against BGB in the Mythical BCSCG. Besides, we got Jeff Bowden and even I could have gone undefeated against mythical ACC competition

Then they came for Jeremy Pruitt and
I didn’t say anything except to ask Jimbo how come the Dogs have so much more money than we do and Jimbo blinked, talked fast and said, “It turns out that nobody let the dogs out. They let them in and they made some music, some house music, some dog house music.”

None of us know exactly what when down, nor what was said to CTG in his meeting with Richt, and that certainly includes me. While I don’t know, I feel CMR knew that Pruitt was unhappy at FSU, probably from Friend. It is common knowledge that Jimbo can be difficult to work with, has a large ego, and is doing his “Little Nicky Junior” act. So that was a hole card that Richt held going into his meeting with Grantham, imo. I believe Richt told CTG that his time at UGA was short, if not immediately, after the contract expired. Doesn’t take a genius to see the differences in the way CTG handles himself versus that of CMR. Grantham knowing it would be more advantageous for his future to get hired away from Georgia versus being booted put out feelers and found a sucker in Petrino.

Just my opinion, but it supports my contention that this whole 2-3 act play didn’t occur over a 41 hour span. Just too smooth for something so ragged.

These 2 recent posts about the Pruitt hire were both excellent and maybe the funniest laugh out loud material I have read on this blog, over the past 5 years. It’s tough to make optimism funny.
Go Blutarsky and Go Dawgs!!!

We get Pruitt and Petrino gets Grantham. Actually, as long as he’s not in Athens any longer, I really don’t care where Grantham ends up. But there is something humorous about him joining the ole motorcycle-in-the-gravel guy. Better score a bunch, BP. And welcome aboard, Jeremy Pruitt!

We get Pruitt as DC in near record time and instead of being happy people are carping that it didn’t happen through Richt firing Grantham. This pathology tht afflicts a slice of our fanbase is both stupifyingly annoying and totally fascinating. Senator we have to come up with a name for what plagues these people and add it to the lexicon.

Also everyone, CMR was in Indianapolis Sunday at a coaches convention and flew back Monday, in case anyone needed some extra meat in their conspiracy stew. Of course the Dawgraders will “interpret” this to mean he was actually secretly interviewing his top DC choice, one Manny Diaz!

Billy… contary to your comment that the title “Dawgraders” describes these negative nellies…I believe “Dawgraders” refers to people who are not Georgia fans at all…people in the sports media…that put a ho-hum spin on everything UGA. For instance..if Georgia beat the #1 team in the country, some ahole on ESPN would say, “Well, (#!) was without it’s third string safety so the win isn’t really impressive as it looks”, etc.
What these peope are (and are called out on this blog to be) is E-Orr Dawgs….(I’m sure I spelled it incorrectly, but it’s the whiney donkey from Winnie the Pooh if my mind is working right…which would be unusual).
Not to be contrary, but I believe these points are more accurate. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong (being a married man, I’m used to it).

Quote Of The Day

“But outside of that, the biggest advantage you can have is have good leadership, have a veteran football team, and when you’ve got that, it doesn’t matter whether you have spring practice or not. When you don’t have that, it’s tougher, when you don’t have leadership and you don’t have the experience at certain positions.”— Kirby Smart, Dawgs247, 3/31/20